A leading director of the Czech film renaissance provides a philosophical meditation on life and death, set amidst complex hospital apparatus and the sadness, hope, or resignation of the patients. Existentialist rather than optimist, the approach is one of humanistic atheism, accepting death as part of life. Interviews with doctors and nurses explore their outlook; all speak of death as a fact, without either sentimentality or religiosity. The studied objectivity of the film only imperfectly hides an intense emotionality.

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